Building real friendships

Geraint Michael is pioneering a different kind of church in St. David’s, West Wales. It’s a small group, with number of young adults fully engaged at the core. Group members meet in an art gallery above a café on Sunday evenings, and prayer triplets also meet during the week, praying for their community.

In an area where church attendance is minimal, the group is learning together how to ‘be church’ as a community, as well as learning how to create space for natural openness and hospitality – being accessible.

Geraint, 28, spoke about their vision for engaging with their community:

We want to serve the people of this town, and help them in practical ways. We don’t just want to find a need and address it - we want to make friends. The relationships come first, and then you can relate to where people are at and be a good friend by encouraging them and helping them out in their situation.

We’ve put together a survey to take around all the houses in the town. It gives us an excuse to knock on people’s doors and get to know them.

The survey asks questions such as “do you have any hobbies?” and “what’s the best thing about living here?”, as well as ‘what are the town’s biggest problems?’ We want to find out where there are problems and what we can do about those, but we’ve deliberately put needs second and relationships first. So we’re also asking “what are the positive things we can meet over, and get to know each other better?”

As we develop deepening personal relationships we'll all be more likely to share our needs honestly, and we’ll be more likely to meet each other’s needs as friends.

There’s plenty of common ground between our needs and the needs of the community around us. We don’t want to come in as a service provider with a perfect solution for their problem. Instead, we’re hoping it might go a bit like this: as a group we’ll discuss what we’re struggling with - for example, money management. As the topic is relevant to our friends, we invite them to join us, and we look together at how we manage our own finances. We share our experiences and successes and failures, and we teach each other. We make use of practical resources, and we see what Jesus has to say on the subject, because as a community we’re trying to follow him in the way we live our lives.

It’s important to remember that it’s not a one-way friendship that suggests: “I can help you but you can’t help me”. As we invite friends to join in our discussions, we’re also willing to accept invitations from them, and we take an interest in their own activities.

We’re trying to grow a culture of community, of learning together, accountability, and being good friends – friends after the likeness of Jesus! As we take that to our new friends, we are able to meet real needs in a way that only a good friend can do.

Last Updated 21 October 2008